Embrace the Learning Curve w/ Chloé Rada – The Shaker Green Room at RecFest USA, Ep. 8

[Music] so uh thanks for sitting down with us today uh who are you and why are you here sure I am Chloe Raa um I currently work for Zoom info I manage our employer branding and our recruitment operations and so I’m a first time recfest attendee I’m also hosting the Inspire stage this afternoon with my lovely co-host Alison Cruz um so pretty excited because a lot of the folks I’ve known in the industry for a while and we’re going to talk about what um has you know been inspirational why people are here for me it’s all about the community and the connection um if I wouldn’t be here like in my role today if it wasn’t for the community having grown up in the industry I Rely so heavily on the people surrounding me like yourselves who’ve known each other for a very long time and especially when times get tough those are the people that you need to lean on even more so yeah so moving into out of I’m pretty much into Q4 but looking toward 2025 what advice would you have for your peers moving into next year um don’t be afraid to build the plane as you fly it um so I always like to think about things kind of from like a process standpoint um like don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good right so and it’s okay to fail and find a safe space where you can do some trial and error and have some risks so I think find a place that you can feel comfortable being yourself and then also allowing yourself to fail fast how many employees are at Zoom info 3500 3500 yes so not huge yes but not small talk about how you look at branding from sort of that middle Zone and is there some mixed with we got a little budget to spend talk about how you look at branding as sort of a middle tier size company sure so we’re an engineering forward organization so the majority of our hires are coming up through engineering uh we first launched our uh we launched our International internship program um this past year we hosted 25 interns in the US we’re expanding to India and Israel so we are really focused around that experience for our interns um and develop in a pipeline of early Talent so that we have those available to work on um the Forward Thinking type of products that we have like co-pilot for example so we’re focused a lot around what is the give and the get for individual like personas the engineering we basically have people who design our products who sell our products and then people who make sure um the products are being leveraged so your customer service both so those are the kind of our three verticals um so I don’t think it’s any different from any other other organization I’ve worked at many complex organizations with variety of um like verticals and and disciplines and each of them have their different the candidates have different motivations they’re at different stages within their career journey and the reasons for joining to be attracted to a certain organization whether it be Tech or Food Service are all very different so I think it’s understanding that plain field and then also match with um like what’s happening in the in the in the marketplace with your competitors kind of looking at like what do you have that’s more advantageous than um the other tech company down the road for example so we’re diving in deep in that right now we’ve done a lot of research and focus groups we’ve done some pressure testing we’re about to launch a new employer brand um across across the globe foro that’s some work um and doing a team of one right now um with my early Talent lead who will be here later today um so it takes it takes a lot I think to to manage that but it’s a repeatable process that I’ve used the last several companies and I wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t for like the partners that I bring on board like Shaker and like some of the other folks behind the scenes that really help me um deliver those career stories so 2024 what has surprised you the most about this year thus far um the emphasis on internal like activating your employer brand internally and the need to partner and be in lock step with your people success teams and your people operations teams um I really am going at this from and this is very different in from like past organizations where we’re developing our internal Road Show together not like here is the brand I want you to deliver it like how can we activate this internally and making sure that it matches the employee experience that to me is very different so um it’s kind of like a little bit of like internal calms I’m playing here but then also really relying on our um you know the people’s success team to help us um you know make sure that it’s matching the the you know the promise Yeah you mentioned Israel obviously there are some geopolitical challenges with that area do you view that as an opportunity or is there a threat that you are planning for talk about companies that are growing into areas that there may be geopolitical risks so yes so one of the things that we’ve done to alleviate that is really focus more on community so bringing our employees back to the office we actually just opened up a new office in ranana are I may be saying that wrong but um and having events so and bringing and inviting family members of our employees so they feel a sense of safety and feel a sense of community in a place that they can call home this was built state-of-the-art um sustainable materials um beautiful spaces that um will allow for better collaborations among our sales and our engineering teams and really I can see the employees Thrive because they feel proud of space that they can come to work even though they were hybrid or they were working from home for a period of time um we’re mimicking that same concept also in our India offices as well uh we’ve opened up two new offices one um one just being recently and in the tech Hub out there in shanai and Bangalore um and the same thing they’ve done family fest events so really creating this opportunity that the employee experience where they feel safe and they feel a part of a big something bigger yeah so 2025 what’s going to be your major priority in 2025 oh gosh um I’m hoping uh I can really improve our Tech stack so um I’m looking for right now uh for efficiency yeah efficiency around a better candidate experience being more conversational on our career site um efficiency in terms of using AI to help you know source and find candidates within our CRM yeah um I think there’s a lot of opportunity there that will increase the time time to hire um so uh under undertaking an RFP is a huge thing that’s going to be taking over my life for the next year um and sometimes it even means reimplementing the systems that you already have and adding new features or you know doing more recruiter enablement to ensure that they’re leveraging all the tools that they can you mentioned being a one a oneman army if you will and I think a lot of listeners and viewers will relate to that you have an agency that’s helping you in Shaker but what are some tools technologically that that are sort of invaluable to you as a oneman band uh in your in your daily activities so there’s two that are always have been very near and dear to my heart um employee advocacy so looking for a tool that can help you know help your employees share the content that you are creating to amplify what that culture is like right it’s that employee experience um and also along those same lines um video like video capture platforms too to help tell those stories cuz when you’re activating a brand you you people trust people before people trust brand so you want to leverage the voice of your own employee as much as you can so at scale I think when I when I launched my um when I first launched this video capture platform I think I got like I think I have over 70 employee videos within like the first like 8 months so not only and not every video is going to be great but the sentiment behind it also be used in a variety of ways whether it be employee quote cards or using that to kind of build out your messaging for your different personas so those would be like the two tools that I would recommend um exploring um and a lot of times you’ll get to get to impact fast that’s actually our new employer brand when you’re using um when you’re using these tools versus um you know being on the long list of priorities with your own internal like communication team and that you know that could be a good good route to go as well um but to me I like to act you know I like to be swift about things um and I want to you know I want to get those stories out as quick as possible well Chloe thanks for sitting down with us if somebody wants to connect with you where would you send them sure uh LinkedIn uh I think will probably be a great place to find me um send me a know let me know you’re interested in connecting or you probably could just like you know Google me use your sourcing tactics here but I’m not I’m not hard to find and I know a number different people so ask around right leverage that community and and you know make those connections Network baby Network baby we enjoy the show thanks thanks for hanging out with us thank you [Music]